Big Fish/Little Fish: Perceptions of Celebrity



Macquarie-Newcastle Humanities Postgraduate Research Symposium

24 February 2007

Big Fish/Little Fish: Perceptions of Celebrity

Joyleen Christensen

Introduction

The central aim of this paper is to investigate how the public perception of celebrity functions on multiple, geographically-determined levels. In particular, I wish to examine the notion that a local celebrity, in this case, Hong Kong superstar, Andy Lau Tak—wah, can simultaneously exist in the public consciousness as both ‘Little Fish in a Big Pond/Big Fish in a Little Pond’.

The key hypothesis to be tested with this case study is the idea that celebrity is, essentially, the mediation of the projection of personality and audience (popular and critical) perceptions of that personality. In my exploration of the mechanics of celebrity, I will be scrutinizing the perceived differences between the local and global star with a view to reconciling this imposed theoretical hierarchy with a more realistic view of contemporary celebrity culture.

Motivations

The impetus for this investigation into local vs. global celebrity arose from my increasing frustration with traditional methods of measuring the status of Hong Kong film stars who are virtually unknown outside of Asian communities. The subject of my PhD thesis - the aforementioned Andy Lau – is one of the most popular entertainers in Asian history, yet in the bewildering absence of any substantial analysis of his film career in English-language texts, I find that I am often forced to rely upon conventional sources, such as box office receipts, various honours and awards, etc., to establish his popularity. Although these statistics can be quite impressive – Lau was recently recognised as being the biggest box-office draw in Hong Kong cinema for the past twenty years and he also has a Guinness World Record title for his achievements as a Cantopop singer – they fail to convey the full extent of Lau’s social status.

For this reason, I have decided to look to alternative sources of information that document Andy Lau’s critical and popular reception. In addition to conventional techniques, such as a critical and contextual analysis of individual texts considered significant or in some way representative of a particular theme or historical moment I decided to base my research upon empirical evaluations of popular Hong Kong cinema that draw upon relevant sources, such as English and Chinese-language media, businesses dependent upon the Hong Kong entertainment industry and its audience, fan clubs and websites, as well as various other internet-based sources that document the complex social implications of organized and spontaneous interaction between fans of Hong Kong entertainers. Finally, I made a decision to include personal and acquired anecdote that I felt would provide valuable and unique insight into specific topics of discussion.[1]

Quantitative Measurement of Celebrity Status

One quick, novel, and surprisingly effective method of classifying celebrity status that I stumbled upon during the course of my research was the quantitative Google ‘hit’ count method outlined by Eric Schulman in the satirical science journal, Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).[2] Although the AIR has become somewhat notorious in recent years for its ‘research that makes people laugh and think’ – including special issues on such far-flung topics as ‘Feline Reactions to Bearded Men’ (Vol. 5, No. 5) and ‘Chicken and Fish’ (Vol. 9, No. 4) - its quirky articles have the added benefit of promoting an enhanced, lateral approach to a variety of academic topics.

Employing modern technology (i.e. the Google search engine) as a starting point for his quantitative method of celebrity classification, Schulman constructs a model for gauging the fame of individuals within the universally-recognized ‘A’ List, ‘B’ List, … ‘Z’ List Celebrity hierarchy structure. Explaining that his method eschews problems inherent in traditional celebrity studies that rely upon such devices as informal surveys of various research journals, for example, “subjectivity, lack of reproducibility, and a notable failure of the methods to properly classify people with low levels of fame”, Schulman devises a ‘logarithmic international standard unit of fame’ (the dBLw), “where fame (Lw) is the number of Google ‘hits’ for the person divided by the number of Google ‘hits’ for Monica Lewinsky”.[3]

Fame (dBLw) = 10 log [fame (Lw)]

Schulman’s adoption of the Weber-Fechner Law of human perception requires a decreasing classification of celebrity which suggests that, “people we perceive as ’A’ List Celebrities are on average ten times more famous that people we perceive as ‘B’ List Celebrities, who are on average ten times more famous than people we perceive as ‘C’ List Celebrities, and so on.” In keeping with this rationale, Schulman argues that it is necessary to apply the following formula:

|‘A’ List | | |fame |> |+5 dBLw |

|‘B’ List |-5 |< |fame |< |+5 dBLw |

|‘C’ List |-15 |< |fame |< |-5 dBLw |

|‘D’ List |-25 |< |fame |< |-15 dBLw |

|‘E’ List |-35 |< |fame |< |-25 dBLw |

|‘F’ List |-45 |< |fame |< |-35 dBLw |

|‘G’ List |-55 |< |fame |< |-45 dBLw |

|‘H’ List | | |fame |< |-55 dBLw |

Although this elaborate scientific construction is obviously intended to be farcical in nature, it does, nevertheless, provide an extremely useful method for easily communicating the relative social ranking of disparate individuals.

Through the use of three simple tables that impose an artificial class register of celebrities, I propose to demonstrate how we may position individuals within a global context without losing sight of their native celebrity status. Each of these tables is a sample representation of the public social ranking of a number of celebrities who have been divided into various fame classifications according to Schulman’s logarithmic equation. Taking each individual’s Google ‘hit’ rating as it was on 23 February 2007, I have applied the logarithmic function in Table 1 using Monica Lewinsky’s ‘hit’ count of 1,260,000 as the ‘standard for fame comparison’.

Table 1: Classified Celebrities

|Name |Hits |Fame |List |

|Britney Spears |34,100,000 |14.32 |A |

|Bill Gates |32,700,000 |14.14 | |

|The Beatles |17,200,000 |11.35 | |

|Jesus Christ |13,800,000 |10.39 | |

|Bill Clinton |12,400,000 |9.93 | |

|Albert Einstein |12,200,000 |9.86 | |

|Brad Pitt |4,850,000 |5.85 | |

|David Beckham |4,060,000 |5.08 | |

|Tiger Woods |3,110,000 |3.92 |B |

|Kylie Minogue |3,050,000 |3.84 | |

|Nicole Kidman |2,140,000 |2.30 | |

|Cate Blanchett |1,810,000 |1.57 | |

|Jackie Chan |1,660,000 |1.19 | |

|Jet Li |1,620,000 |1.09 | |

|Russell Crowe |1,540,000 |0.87 | |

|John Howard |1,510,000 |0.78 | |

|Heath Ledger |1,410,000 |0.49 | |

|Andy Lau |1,380,000 |0.39 | |

|Monica Lewinsky |1,260,000 |0 | |

|The Wiggles |1,180,000 |-0.28 | |

|Chow Yun-Fat |1,150,000 |-0.39 | |

|Shane Warne |897,000 |-1.47 | |

|Ian Thorpe |798,000 |-1.98 | |

|Stephen Chow |741,000 |-2.30 | |

|Leslie Cheung |682,000 |-2.67 | |

|Jacky Cheung |483,000 |-4.16 | |

|Nicholas Tse |388,000 |-5.11 |C |

|Aaron Kwok |365,000 |-5.38 | |

|Leon Lai |334,000 |-5.77 | |

|Eric Tsang |302,000 |-6.20 | |

|Francis Ng |239,000 |-7.22 | |

|Cathy Freeman |237,000 |-7.26 | |

|Eason Chan |233,000 |-7.33 | |

|Tim Winton |164,000 |-8.85 | |

|Lau Ching-wan |135,000 |-9.70 | |

|Nick Cheung |108,000 |-10.67 | |

|Eddie Maguire |74,200 |-12.30 | |

|Bert Newton |63,900 |-12.60 | |

|Eric Kot |53,500 |-13.72 | |

|Gretel Killeen |46,900 |-14.29 | |

|Nicky Wu |40,500 |-14.93 | |

|Daryl Somers |34,600 |-15.61 |D |

|Teddy Robin Kwan |16,500 |-18.83 | |

|Ray Meagher |16,000 |-18.96 | |

|Matthew Krok |4,200 |-37.93 |F |

|ME!!! |24 |-47.20 |G |

Table 2 catalogues the Australian figures recorded in Table 1 and makes necessary adjustments (taking Eddie Maguire as the ‘Australian standard for fame comparison’) to give a more accurate depiction of the Australian celebrity hierarchy.

Table 2: Classified Australian Celebrities

|Name |Hits |Fame |List |

|Kylie Minogue |3,050,000 |16.14 |A |

|Nicole Kidman |2,140,000 |14.60 | |

|Cate Blanchett |1,810,000 |13.87 | |

|Russell Crowe |1,540,000 |13.17 | |

|John Howard |1,510,000 |13.08 | |

|Heath Ledger |1,410,000 |12.79 | |

|The Wiggles |1,180,000 |12.01 | |

|Shane Warne |897,000 |10.82 | |

|Ian Thorpe |798,000 |10.31 | |

|Cathy Freeman |237,000 |5.04 | |

|Tim Winton |164,000 |3.44 |B |

|Eddie Maguire |74,200 |0 | |

|Bert Newton |63,900 |-0.65 | |

|Gretel Killeen |46,900 |-1.99 | |

|Daryl Somers |34,600 |-3.31 | |

|Ray Meagher |16,000 |-6.66 |C |

|Matthew Krok* |4,200 |-12.47 | |

|‘The Kid from Hey Dad’* |203 |-25.63 |D |

* Interestingly, if we were to substitute the generic title ‘The Kid from Hey Dad’ for the name ‘Matthew Krok’ we would have a hit count of 203 (fame = -25.63) – placing the same individual in both the ‘C’ and ‘D’ List Celebrity categories!

Table 3 employs a similar strategy as used in Table 2, however, this time I will be attempting to document the Hong Kong celebrity hierarchy with actor Nick Cheung fulfilling the role of ‘standard for fame comparison’.

Table 3: Classified Hong Kong Celebrities

|Name |Hits |Fame |List |

|Jackie Chan |1,660,000 |11.87 |A |

|Jet Li |1,620,000 |11.76 | |

|Andy Lau |1,380,000 |11.06 | |

|Chow Yun-Fat |1,150,000 |10.27 | |

|Stephen Chow |741,000 |8.36 | |

|Leslie Cheung |682,000 |8.00 | |

|Jacky Cheung |483,000 |6.50 | |

|Nicholas Tse |388,000 |5.55 | |

|Aaron Kwok |365,000 |5.29 | |

|Leon Lai |334,000 |4.90 |B |

|Eric Tsang |302,000 |4.47 | |

|Francis Ng |239,000 |3.45 | |

|Eason Chan |233,000 |3.34 | |

|Lau Ching-wan |135,000 |0.96 | |

|Nick Cheung |108,000 |0 | |

|Eric Kot |53,500 |-3.05 | |

|Nicky Wu |40,500 |-4.26 | |

|Teddy Robin Kwan |16,500 |-8.16 |C |

Results

Although a cultural experiment that determines an individual’s celebrity status based on their Google ‘hit’ count is necessarily flawed in nature (consider, briefly, the possible difficulties associated with alternate spelling of names, common names, nicknames, group associations that reduces the incidence of an individual’s name being used, etc.), the Schulman quantitative method for the measurement of fame proves to be a very useful and effective tool for cross-cultural comparisons of celebrity status. Note, for example, how internationally-ranked ‘B’ List Celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Andy Lau move to the rank of ‘A’ List Celebrity in their native, Australia and Hong Kong, respectively – resulting in the ‘Little Fish in a Big Pond/Big Fish in a Little Pond’ scenario outlined at the start of this paper. Through the construction of ‘statistical snapshots’ like the one shown in Table 3, I hope to allow those unfamiliar with the Hong Kong entertainment industry to quickly and easily recognize the significance attached to certain individuals.

Notes

Schulman, E. (2006). Measuring Fame Quantitatively. III. What Does it Take to Make the 'A' List? Retrieved 19 February, 2007, from

"Who Is Your Ideal Hero?" (2004). Retrieved 18 February, 2007, from archive/index.php/t-934.html

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[1] Although anecdotes about Lau’s millennial nomination as the ‘Perfect Chinese Male’ give some indication of the entertainer’s overall popularity, a random street poll of five hundred Hong Kong citizens conducted four years later reveals the full extent of Lau’s social authority: the actor/singer came in at number six in the all-time personal hero stakes - not quite reaching the echelons of ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ although, rather impressively, edging out ‘Jesus Christ’ who stalled in seventh place! ("Who Is Your Ideal Hero?" , 2004)

[2] (Schulman, 2006)

[3] Note: Schulman explains that Monica Lewinsky is the current archetypal ‘B’ List Celebrity - “who has a fame of 0 dBLw by definition” – making her the ‘universal standard for fame comparison’.(Schulman, 2006, 11)

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